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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27204574">Easy as Breathing (So, Actually Pretty Hard if You Think About It)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennamePersona/pseuds/PennamePersona'>PennamePersona</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda &amp; Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>But they're definitely a part of it, During Canon, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Link figuring out how he feels about this whole situation, Link's introspection during a very broad description of what actually happens during the game, Mentions of Link loving Zelda but the romance isn't the whole point, Neither are gone into Heavily, Nonbinary Link (Legend of Zelda), Pre-Canon, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Spoilers for DLC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:08:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,508</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27204574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennamePersona/pseuds/PennamePersona</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t think people want to hear that the only change he noticed right after he was declared the Hero of Legend was a kind of settling inside him, like maybe he’d been waiting for the sword without realizing it, but now that he’s got it, he just feels fine.</p><p>He doesn’t think the Chosen Hero is supposed to feel “fine”. </p><p>Then again, he doesn’t think the Goddess-Blooded Princess is supposed to feel like a consummate failure with the weight of the world on her shoulders and next to no support from anyone around her, so maybe these expectations are nonsense and Link should see if swinging the Master Sword around would convince people to just lay off.</p><p>(He doubts it would.)</p><p>or</p><p>What does it feel like to be a Chosen Hero? Link's here to tell you, "probably not what you're expecting."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Link &amp; Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Easy as Breathing (So, Actually Pretty Hard if You Think About It)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It's been like 10 months since I've posted anything and I couldn't remember how to post a new work at first and that's surreal</p><p>Anyway I *love* this game, I got hardcore into it at the beginning of quarantine and played it for basically a week straight? I think I got like...70ish hours into it that first week...? and then recently I hyperfocused on some fic and now, at last, I am writing for it! This is a really broad overview of both the game and things that I think are really interesting to write about, so there's a chance I'll write more fic later that goes into actual detail on some of this. It took me a couple tries to figure out if this is something I wanted to split into two fics, or if it really did fit as one, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Usually an introspection oneshot for me is like, 1k, maybe 2k, and then suddenly 4500 words happened! So that's cool.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Link is young, before the sword, before he’s part of a legend, he falls in love with Hyrule. </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>It’s easy to do. The grass beneath his feet is green, springy, perfect to roll around in, perfect to catch crickets in, perfect to lie in for hours. The trees that grow around his home are excellent for climbing, their branches just right to leap down from and practice wild sword swings with a branch. The water in Zora’s Domain is cool and fresh, and even if he’s not meant to live in it like his Zora friends, he loves to swim and dive and flip from ridiculous heights. Every part of the world around him feels <em> right </em>, feels like it’s his to exist in, and as he grows older, it feels like it’s his to protect.</p><p> </p><p>And he loves more than just the land. He loves its people. </p><p> </p><p>He loves his Zora friends, who do everything with enthusiasm, who don’t think he’s strange for not liking to talk out loud sometimes, who teach him flipping and diving and swimming and <em> fishing </em>. He visits every summer and each time he’s treated like someone who’s supposed to be there, and as far as the Zora ever seem to care, the strangest thing about him is that he can’t tread water while he sleeps.</p><p> </p><p>He loves the Gorons, who say what they mean, who don’t care if he doesn’t talk so long as he can throw his weight around and try to eat a rock, who show him how to wrestle and have a simple understanding of the world, where everyone is their brother and there’s an answer to every problem (even if that answer is usually rock-oriented).</p><p> </p><p>He loves the Gerudo, though he knows them less, loves the way they fight, loves the way every swing of the sword is a dance and a masterful strike all at once. He loves the way they’re beautiful and powerful, loves the pretty fabric of desert clothes, loves how when he wears it one day, the knights his father travels with cough awkwardly and suggest he remove it for other, more appropriate attire, but the Gerudo don’t even bat an eye and they tell Link how nicely the color compliments Hylian skin.</p><p> </p><p>He loves the Rito and the way they often fly and talk the same way: boastfully but straightforward, like a combination of Gerudo beauty, Zora enthusiasm, and Goron simplicity. He loves the warmth of their feathers, loves how they tease him and praise him in the same breath, loves the sound the arrows make when Rito archers nab bullseye after bullseye. He loves how they don’t really care if he talks as much as they care if he can do any fancy shooting, loves how they’ll pretend to mock him while actually giving useful tips.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>He loves the Sheikah and how impossible their fighting is until they teach it to him, loves how they can go from boisterous laughter to vanishing without a sound, loves that they tell him the rules to things and for once he’s not left guessing, loves how the stealth training involves <em> not talking </em>, loves how they expect him to prove himself and still praise him when he does.</p><p> </p><p>He loves other Hylians, loves his father and the other knights, loves his mother and her cooking, loves his sister and her childish wonder at every new thing. He loves learning swordplay as he journeys around the continent, loves the simple elegance of Castle Town, loves how even if he isn’t quite what people expect, he still has a place among them. He loves each Goddess statue, loves how they shine a bit, even though other people can’t seem to always see it. He loves the way he can see the castle even when he’s miles and miles away on another journey, loves looking back and having those towers and spires still be there, a constant he can’t imagine being without.</p><p> </p><p>Every part of Hyrule fits together perfectly, as far as Link can tell. He knows there are dangerous places he shouldn’t go, but that seems natural to him. Of course the land isn’t without danger, of course it can hurt him, of course the people on it aren’t always good. He loves Hyrule like it’s his greatest duty and he’ll die if he doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean he expects it to love him back. He knows the land probably doesn’t care much about any of the creatures on it, and he loves it for that, too, loves that when he travels on his own, he can just exist without expectation.</p><p> </p><p>So when Hyrule speaks to him in the mist swirling out of the forest he’s told is dangerous, Link can’t just ignore it. He’s always loved Hyrule without expecting anything back, but if he’s offered this chance for adventure, how could he possibly turn it down? There’s not a bone in his body that tells him it’s wise to wait, not a shred of arrogance that needs proof of power to back his decision up, just blind courage that leads him into the fog and then right back out with a sword that shines through the darkness.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>After the sword, after he’s part of a legend, after he’s a champion, something changes in him.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not the kind of change people expected after he got the Master Sword. He knows that.</p><p> </p><p>Apparently, getting the sword is the sort of thing that’s meant to be an impossibly huge revelation, like it should’ve thrown him off-balance and confused him, like it should spark some deep-rooted change. He knows it won’t happen. Why would Hyrule call out to him, why would Hylia choose him, if he needed to change? </p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t say that. To be fair, he doesn’t say much at all, which was true long before the sword. He thinks it’s easier in some ways to be a champion with grand expectations put on him,  because it makes his silence seem appropriate, like he’s considering Great and Important things or like he’s the kind of man who is so focused on fighting that there’s nothing else going on in his head.</p><p> </p><p>Neither is true, but people like those ideas much better than that he just doesn’t want to talk.</p><p> </p><p>It’s a convenient break for him, because if they expected him to talk, he knows they’d expect him to say deep and important things, like all the Heroes of old are going to speak through his mouth. He doesn’t know how to tell them that he’s just Link. He’s still the same person who loved Hyrule all his life, it’s just that now he knows why.</p><p> </p><p>He knows now that his soul isn’t just <em> his </em> . He’s a reincarnation of an ancient hero, and his soul is still that first soul, the one Hylia saw and linked herself to because she <em> saw </em> how much that first hero loved Hyrule and knew that kind of devotion was needed.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t think people want to hear that it’s actually pretty simple, figuring out the “why” of this whole Goddess Chosen Hero thing. He doesn’t think people want to hear that the only change he noticed right after he was declared the Hero of Legend was a kind of settling inside him, like maybe he’d been waiting for the sword without realizing it, but now that he’s got it, he just feels fine.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t think the Chosen Hero is supposed to feel “fine”. </p><p> </p><p>Then again, he doesn’t think the Goddess-Blooded Princess is supposed to feel like a consummate failure with the weight of the world on her shoulders and next to no support from anyone around her, so maybe these expectations are nonsense and Link should see if swinging the Master Sword around would convince people to just <em> lay off </em>.</p><p> </p><p>(He doubts it would.)</p><p> </p><p>That’s the real change. When it’s just him, on his own, Master Sword or not, he feels pretty fine. But after he meets Zelda, after he’s confronted with the other piece of his destiny - </p><p> </p><p>Well.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t know why people didn’t expect this part to be more important.</p><p> </p><p>The Hero of Legend was chosen by Hylia, who gave a part of herself to the royal bloodline. Every time, in every story, there’s the Knight and the Princess. Sure, the Knight has the sword, but the sword isn’t part of the trio. The sword is already part of him.</p><p> </p><p>When he’s assigned to guard Princess Zelda, he learns that his soul knows more than just how to love Hyrule and hold a sword. His soul knows that the Princess is supposed to stay safe, that it’s <em> his </em> job to protect her, that she’s Important.</p><p> </p><p>Apparently, her soul doesn’t feel the same way. At first, she hates him, hates him <em> viciously </em>, tears him down and yells at him and tells him to leave her alone, in no uncertain terms. He doesn’t argue with her (never has the words), and sometimes he wonders why it’s just him that feels this way. Maybe it’s that his job is easier, that all he had to do was find a sword, and she has to find something inside herself. He doesn’t know if she can feel how they’re parts of each other, doesn’t know if part of her just clicked when he started guarding her, and he really, really doesn’t know how to ask.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t love her, at first. He protects her, he cares for her, he starts to get kind of really upset every time someone implies she’s not trying hard enough because <em> how can they not see </em>? How can they look at the princess and not see her exhaustion, the strain she’s put through, how can they miss how hard she is on herself? </p><p> </p><p>And then, well.</p><p> </p><p>When he saves her from the Yiga, he’s doing his duty. Whenever he’s with her, he’s doing his duty, but something changes after he saves her. She hates him less, and after a while, maybe...doesn’t hate him at all.</p><p> </p><p>And once that happens, once she opens up to him, it’s ridiculous how easy it gets.</p><p> </p><p>Princess Zelda doesn’t mind that he doesn’t talk much. He thinks it infuriated her when he was first assigned to her, like she thought what the others do, that he was only thinking of fighting or that he was aloof. Now, though, now that she knows him…</p><p> </p><p>She’s clever, incredibly clever, and he loves it. He thinks she’s got him figured out, that she knows he likes how she fills the silence between them, does more than enough talking for the both of them. He likes that she thinks out loud, likes that she shares her ideas with him, likes that she asks him questions even if he doesn’t always answer, even in sign.</p><p> </p><p>He can feel the part of his soul that’s dedicated to her, can feel the way they’re two-thirds of a greater whole, can feel how much better it is when they’re working together because they were never meant to be the ones in conflict.</p><p> </p><p>He can also feel the part of him, just him, just Link, that loves her. </p><p> </p><p>He’s never met anyone who cares about the land like he does. She studies it like it’s worth the world, like every species of plant and animal is worth something, even if they can’t directly benefit her. She cares for seedlings in her study, takes careful pictures of everything they find in the wild, makes note of how to help and when things are useful and when it’s best just to leave the land well enough alone.</p><p> </p><p> He’s never met anyone who thinks like she does, never met anyone who could hold strong against so much, never met anyone harder on themself.</p><p> </p><p>The way he feels about Princess Zelda is the only big change in him, after the sword. He doesn’t think that’s what people want to hear, maybe isn’t even what Zelda wants to hear, but it’s the truth. He knows it’s the truth before the final battle, but there’s no time like your own death to really get certain of things.</p><p> </p><p>He’s bleeding out in her arms, looking up at her, how she’s glowing like a Goddess after harnessing her power like he never once doubted she would, and he feels the warmth of pride and the sting of regret. </p><p> </p><p>She’s holding up her end of the deal, now, harnessing that power. And here he is, the one who got all his pieces in order years ago, failing right at the moment of truth. He should’ve been able to protect her, and instead, he’s drawing his last breaths. The regret for that is painful, almost more so than his wounds, but oh, the pride he feels in her, the love he feels for her, that’s a balm like no other. It’s very soothing, really, enough that he’s starting to not feel his wounds at all, starting to...slip out of consciousness...has he moved? Is he no longer in her arms? Is he...asleep?</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>After the Calamity hits, the first part stays. When he wakes up, he doesn’t have enough memories in his head to know his own name, much less have deep and carefully considered thoughts about the world or the pieces of his soul. </p><p> </p><p>Right away though, he finds solace in the land.</p><p> </p><p>Hyrule, the land itself, doesn’t seem to care whether or not he remembers who he is, much less if he knows how to defeat Calamity Ganon and save the princess. It’s comforting. He appreciates the land, likes that it’s an easy thing to love, especially pitted against this feeling he gets every time he hears Her Voice.</p><p> </p><p>The first blood moon hits right after he’s cleared a Bokoblin camp and decided to rest there. It’s really unfortunate timing, and he tries so hard to be grateful to Her Voice for giving him some warning before he has to fight them again. He tries <em> so hard </em> to not get really irritated with this whole thing. </p><p> </p><p>After all, he slept for a hundred years, so it seems like there’s no excuse for him to be so tired of all this.</p><p> </p><p>Most of his traveling, he does alone, and it’s impossible to fully express how much he prefers it that way. When it’s just him and Hyrule, things are so much simpler, he doesn’t have to try and force his vocal cords to work, doesn’t have to play the part of the dutiful knight, doesn’t have to try and find answers to questions he knows people think are simple.</p><p> </p><p>Where are you from? Where are you going? Have you heard the story of the Hero of Legend? Have you heard the tale of how he died, right here, at Fort Hateno? Have you heard about the Princess, trapped in the castle? Have you heard about how it’s <em> your job </em>to save her, even though you don’t know anything and the only thing that’s familiar is the land and the sound of Her Voice, and one of those makes you feel like you’re dying but you keep waiting for the next time you’ll hear it because it’s like you need it, like you’ll be in agony knowing She’s there but for the first time, the silence is worse?</p><p> </p><p>So yeah. He’s tired.</p><p> </p><p>But fine, yeah, he does like having a job to do, likes having tasks to complete, and at first it’s kind of okay. It’s a weird back-and-forth with the Zora, who either recognize him and maybe hate him or maybe forgive him for things he can’t even remember, or don’t recognize him and don’t care who he is, just greet him with the same enthusiasm and honesty they do everything else with.</p><p> </p><p>He appreciates the Zora who just don’t care who he is. Prince Sidon and King Dorephan are nice, even if they expect him to have a better idea of his feelings about Mipha than he’s really capable of, but there’s something so refreshing about the Zora who don’t really care about his past but would really appreciate it if he could get a picture of that Lynel pretty please?</p><p> </p><p>Vah Ruta is nice too, in that she’s a task and an adventure all in one, a fight and a puzzle and mostly he can ignore the strange feeling that there’s someone else who’d like this puzzle even more than him.</p><p> </p><p>The remembering is hard. Mipha’s voice is hard. It hurts, different than Her’s hurts, but it strikes a deep-seated grief response that makes him feel dizzy because his conscious mind still doesn’t really know who he’s grieving.</p><p> </p><p>Every bit of memory returning is like that, at first. It gives him such a mixed feeling about Kakariko, because he loves helping the people around town, loves that he can do something as simple and important as make a couple little girls happier, but there’s also Impa. Impa, who isn’t really saddling him with the weight of the world, because the ghost woodsman king already did that, but she does explain it in more detail than he really feels capable of understanding. Usually he likes having things explained clearly, but there’s a part of him that would sort of prefer things stay fuzzy.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t let him take the easy route, though.</p><p> </p><p>So he upgrades the Sheikah Slate, sets out for each Divine Beast, and he doesn’t avoid the painter at the stables who tells him where he can get his soul ripped out and pummeled and stuffed back in. In the man’s defense, he doesn’t <em> know </em> that he’s pointing Link to places that’ll make his brain try and tear itself apart, but it’s really hard not to associate the feeling with him either way.</p><p> </p><p>But still, it’s nice to have tasks.</p><p> </p><p>And that’s all it is, at first. He has tasks to complete, a few things to give him a greater purpose while he gets his feet under him, he takes care of Vah Rudania and decides he likes the Gorons and it’s all okay, it’s fine, remembering Daruk was so much simpler and maybe it’ll just be okay.</p><p> </p><p>He’s made a detour part of the way towards the desert because he sees the strange fog in the forest and it’s so, so familiar. It’s so impossibly familiar but not painful and the Koroks are so simple and delightful and pulling out the damn darkness sealing sword almost kills him, but he <em> does </em> it. He does it, and it feels...good. It feels right, even if it maybe makes every other new memory sting a bit sharper, but the sword feels right and maybe it really will just be okay.</p><p> </p><p>He manages to get about halfway through the pictures She saved in the slate before it’s really, <em> really </em> not okay.</p><p> </p><p>He’s remembering more and more all the time, and it’s affecting him in a big way. He remembers Her pleading with the Goddess and how awful and in pain She sounded and ends up with at least a couple dozen spirit orbs saved before he finally brings himself to talk to a Goddess statue again because he might be annoyed with Hylia for letting Her suffer for so long, but he really does need more stamina.</p><p> </p><p>He spends a solid day in agony in the desert because he saw Her life in danger, saw himself save Her, and the idea of going out into a lightning storm to calm another Divine Beast is nothing compared to the grief and guilt and shame of knowing he might’ve saved Her once, but he <em> failed </em> to do it again, and She’s <em> still waiting </em>.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t have enough of his memories to really understand why he feels so painfully guilty, but that doesn’t make the feeling go away. It’s almost a relief to have new complicated feelings thrust at him in the form of pretty desert fabrics that he knows he’s <em> supposed </em> to feel weird about wearing, but he really just...doesn’t? And when the Gerudo in town call him a pretty Hylian vai while they compliment his skills, it feels good, it feels right, and he doesn’t know if this is something new or if he felt like this Before, too, but it’s still a very nice kind of confusion.</p><p> </p><p>He gets through Vah Naboris, takes care of the Yiga Clan, and tells himself that he can do this, it’s almost over, it’s simple, just one more box to check off, right?</p><p> </p><p>Except he <em> can’t </em>. </p><p> </p><p>It’d be so much easier to just go and deal with Vah Medoh right away, but he can’t do it, there’s a handful of pictures left in the slate and he can’t keep having these holes in his memory, he doesn’t know if this will actually fix it but the blood moon keeps rising once again and he <em> hears </em> Her and he actually did wake up crying last time.</p><p> </p><p>So he tracks down the painter and finds every single one of the places She wanted him to remember, even the one in the castle, which he feels proud of because he knows She’s <em> right there </em> . There’s Calamity Ganon, he can almost see the place he’s supposed to enter to fight him, but he can’t yet. There’s still Vah Medoh left, he can’t just go there, he’s got to find her study and remember Her father yelling at Her and <em> he wants to find the ghost woodsman king and punch him in his stupid ghost face </em>!</p><p> </p><p> He has the stupid darkness sealing sword and he still has to go clear Vah Medoh and talk to the ghost of Revali and get called a hero and that’ll just have to be <em> fine </em>. </p><p> </p><p>It fits his mood that this Champion is the one who can’t stop mocking him. He wants to tell Revali’s spirit that he really needed someone kind of annoying here, someone who didn’t just make him feel like shit for letting them die, but his new memories show him that as it turns out, talking’s <em> never </em> been easy for him and there’s no use waiting for words to magically appear, so he just jumps off the bird and tries to feel optimistic.</p><p> </p><p>And then there’s more.</p><p> </p><p>He’s torn, painfully torn, because there is a part of him that wants to keep exploring Hyrule, wants to keep helping every random person along the way, wants to keep discovering and adventuring, but how can he do that when he knows She’s still trapped?</p><p> </p><p>He gets a solace he doesn’t feel he really deserves when She tells him it’s time for him to learn more about the Champions, in this tone that tells him so clearly that She’s not mad that he hasn’t stormed the castle gates yet. He thinks She wants him to explore still, that She doesn’t begrudge him taking his time.</p><p> </p><p>He deals with the One-Hit Obliterator and walks up and down the entire continent just helping people and finding shrines before he retraces his steps back to Vah Ruta. </p><p> </p><p>At first it’s sort of nice, getting to do what Mipha did a century before, exploring these Champion trials. Then he’s forced to relive her death and he starts to consider the pros and cons of stabbing this monk directly in the face with the Master Sword once he finishes these new trials.</p><p> </p><p>When he finishes the fight at Vah Rudania, he thinks that maybe this is worth something, because he’s learning more about Her, too. It’s nice to know Mipha and Daruk better, of course, because even if he can’t remember them perfectly he knows without a doubt that he trusted them, felt safe with them, felt understood as much as he could, but every new memory of them is laced with a new kind of grief. He knows that Mipha and Daruk cared about him, and he thinks they’d understand why it’s so hard to remember them.</p><p> </p><p>She’s still alive though, and that’s a different kind of pain, but it does mean that every new bit of information is leading him to something besides grief. Maybe it’s barely a positive, but it’s the best bit of optimism he thinks he’s going to get while he’s being emotionally wrung out like this.</p><p> </p><p>Since he’s retracing his steps fully, he goes back to the desert next. He relives Urbosa dying and then he cons a creepy man out of his boots and thinks Urbosa probably would’ve enjoyed watching him do it, and that makes him feel better.</p><p> </p><p>He can relate to Revali on a level that makes him feel a bit petty, watching the Champion try and perfect his mastery of the winds. Revali’s mistakes make Link feel like more of a person when he has to wrangle his memories, and he doubts Revali would give him the same grace the others would, but something about that feels right, too.</p><p> </p><p>He keeps walking around the continent after that, even ducks into the castle and loots it, which he figures he’s owed at this point and he really doubts She’ll argue once She’s free.</p><p> </p><p>He goes back to the Great Plateau and gets to stab the monk in the face after all, and even though it’s one of the hardest fights so far, he really does feel better afterwards.</p><p> </p><p>He listens to Kass’s last song and feels something he doesn’t know how to express. He rides his new Master Cycle to all the places he hasn’t properly explored yet, fights impossible fights, suffers through the Trials of the Sword, and he thinks about Her.</p><p> </p><p>He’s looking at the map on the slate, trying to figure out his next move, when catches himself rubbing at the embroidery of his Champion’s Tunic. </p><p> </p><p>And then he knows it’s time.</p><p> </p><p>As he stocks up on arrows and elixirs and throws rupees at the robot in the Akkala lab, he feels far more calm than he would’ve guessed. He doesn’t tell anyone that he’s ready, and it’s not until he’s halfway to the Sanctum in the castle that he realizes why.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not that he’s finally ready to defeat Calamity Ganon and free Her. This isn’t him making some final push and preparing himself for a fight.</p><p> </p><p>He’s going to walk into the Sanctum, Calamity Ganon is going to fall, and Zelda’s going to be free. He doesn’t feel ready for it because he knows for a fact it’s going to happen. There’s nothing more to it.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He’s wrong.</p><p> </p><p>She’s standing in front of him in the same dress he bled out on, tears in her eyes as she asks if he really remembers her, and he knows he was wrong. There’s so much more to it. </p><p> </p><p>He catches her elbows as she trips, not used to having a body after a century living as an avatar of a Goddess, and there’s <em> so much more </em> to this than he could’ve guessed.</p><p> </p><p>He hears her voice in person, and for the first time since all of this started, he finally takes a full breath.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Things I might actually go into more detail about in later fics (esp if y'all leave comments and encourage me, I live for that):</p><p>- Link being nonbinary</p><p>- Link getting kinda pissed at Hylia for letting Zelda be in so much pain and feel like a failure for so long</p><p>- The way it feels to Know that you're a reincarnation of a legend</p><p>- Link just loving Zelda because it's easy and she makes his life better just by being herself</p><p>- Who knows! More!</p><p>Either way, if you leave a comment, please know that it means the whole world, even if I don't reply to it right away. There are few things that feel as great to me as seeing someone's commented on one of my fics, it's such a good feeling to know my writing can leave any level of impact on someone! And it absolutely encourages me to write more, which I'd love to do.</p><p> </p><p>I take writing requests! Information at: <a href="https://provisionalpenname.tumblr.com">provisionalpenname on tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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